Last year, CRC coordinated bilingual phone calls, text messages, and mail pieces to 6K individuals who were considered unlikely to vote, resulting in 30K contact attempts to participate in the 2018 election.
“At its core, the Community Resource Center is a statewide, capacity building organization for nonprofits,” says Rebecca Gorrell, Director of Education and Leadership Development. “With funding support from the Community Foundation, our Participation Project provides guidance, training, and support to human service nonprofits for their nonpartisan civic engagement efforts.”
Specifically, CRC’s Participation Project partners with human services nonprofits – including the Sister Carmen Community Center, Nederland Food Pantry, Salud Family Health Centers, and Association for Community Living in Boulder County – that have a direct reach into politically marginalized communities in Colorado to register and engage those communities in elections.
By the numbers
In 2018, the Participation Project trained, coached, and/or provided support to 13 nonprofit service providers across the state, thereby engaging 2,670 individuals across 15 counties, including 675 voter registrations and 1,995 pledges to vote. All told, since 2010, the project has directly engaged more than 22,500 individuals and more than 50 Colorado nonprofits.
“Our work addresses disparities that exist in our electorate and in our country by engaging low-income community members and communities of color in elections,” continues Rebecca. “We provide all the back office support so that the nonprofits we work with can focus on having conversations with their clients, leveraging the trust they’ve earned in the communities they serve, and getting individuals registered and pledged to vote.”
CRC also coordinates the Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaign, providing nonpartisan information about ways to cast a ballot. According to Rebecca, GOTV is designed to reach “our entire universe,” including newly engaged individuals, individuals engaged in previous election cycles, and individuals from CRC’s statewide work.
Last year, CRC coordinated bilingual phone calls, text messages, and mail pieces to 6K individuals who were considered unlikely to vote, resulting in 30K contact attempts to participate in the 2018 election. Additionally, all partner sites and CRC canvassers distributed bilingual voting assistance about the election.
“We’re always looking for new partners, and we don’t charge a fee,” adds Rebecca. “In fact, we provide a stipend and resources for a partners to participate, and we have different ways and different levels for organizations who want to get started, who want to plug in to our efforts.
“This program was cultivated by – and invested in – Community Foundation Boulder County, and our Boulder County partners have always been our core partners. This is where we started.”
